D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Guest 85555]

There is also, quite frankly, a huge difference between religion and gaming, and comparing not including objectionable material from new books to an act that it stuns me the artist didn't realize would be considered extremely blasphemous by many people is just downright silly.

it is a common work to bring up in discussions about censorship, especially about censorships motivated by morality (and the risks of rushing to judgement on that front). I find it an appropriate thing to compare this conversation to. But you don't have to agree

I was ten or eleven when this came out and aware of the controversy growing up. I grew up in a deeply religious household, but even I understood it wasn't blasphemous, that it was trying to say something and that it was beautiful. It definitely is challenging to look at if you are religious. But I think it would have been a shame if the protestors got what they wanted.

 

[Guest 85555]

@Chaosmancer and @Justice and Rule have had examples of other reasons to explore dungeons beyond just killing monsters and taking their stuff. I can think of others as well, quite easily. Heck, you want to kill monsters? Have Evil--literally the alignment as a force of energy--be a thing that corrupts everything it touches, and Evil leaks into the mortal world in cracks at the bottom of chasms and ruins, and the PCs are tasked to find the cracks and seal them. There: you get your evil monsters you can kill without resorting to always evil races. You can even say the corruption is impossible to remove completely, so you don't have to have moral dilemmas about killing formerly-innocent beings.

Isn't it good to be more creative by coming up with new reasons to dungeon delve, rather than the same old "those monsters are green and aren't pretty so it's OK to kill them"?

There can always be other reasons. And sure you can be more creative about anything in the game. But killing goblins works and is fun. If you think it is better to go another way, instead of making it compulsory or trying to create a moral or artistic ought for it, show people the joy of going beyond killing goblins, kobolds and orcs. The issue is this is a very simple thing that just works int he game and makes it easy to pick up and play. A lot of people like that, and they don't care if posters on a gaming forum find their enjoyment of it sufficiently creative. I think there is also something to be said for why going into the darkness of a dungeon or wilderness and killing orcs resonates with people, and that something has a lot less to do with colonialism and a lot more with myth and legend.

 

[Justice and Rule]

OK, why is not doing dungeon delves where you kill monsters and take their stuff a bad thing that does a disservice to the hobby?

@Chaosmancer and @Justice and Rule have had examples of other reasons to explore dungeons beyond just killing monsters and taking their stuff. I can think of others as well, quite easily. Heck, you want to kill monsters? Have Evil--literally the alignment as a force of energy--be a thing that corrupts everything it touches, and Evil leaks into the mortal world in cracks at the bottom of chasms and ruins, and the PCs are tasked to find the cracks and seal them. There: you get your evil monsters you can kill without resorting to always evil races. You can even say the corruption is impossible to remove completely, so you don't have to have moral dilemmas about killing formerly-innocent beings.

Isn't it good to be more creative by coming up with new reasons to dungeon delve, rather than the same old "those monsters are green and aren't pretty so it's OK to kill them"?

There is also, quite frankly, a huge difference between religion and gaming, and comparing not including objectionable material from new books to an act that it stuns me the artist didn't realize would be considered extremely blasphemous by many people is just downright silly.

I mean, I always find the complexity of why you're killing someone to be interesting in a game. Bandits, cultists, spies from a hostile invading land... there are plenty of reasons to want to kill people, but giving them motivations can help fill in the world and such. It's not that killing people is off the table, but rather you should have to think about why you are killing these people. Challenging players and forcing them to confront why they want to kill something, to wonder if they are being used justly or just being used... that's interesting. It gets your players to engage with the world and think about where they are and how they can affect things.

 

[Minigiant]

Do you have some sort of internal documentation showing that WoTC doesn't care about balance? Any sort of evidence beyond "but look at these two races and how I'm clearly right that they are so unbalanced that WoTC couldn't possibly have put any effort into it" like is done with literally everything that people claim WoTC is too lazy to have done?

The PHB and DMG races.

I didn't say WOTC doesn't put any effort into balancing races. Just not tons of it.

WhatI suggested is the same thing @Remathilis suggested: treat hybird like Hexbroods and Dhampirs. A race you layer on top of another.

 

[Faolyn]

Choosing not to do them isn't bad for the hobby. This has nothing to do with a person choosing not to do them or a designer choosing to make a module about another adventure structure

That's a non-answer. Why is not doing them, or saying that they're problematic, a disservice to the industry? Those were your words, so you can't claim I'm misrepresenting you.

Why is it a disservice to say "maybe we should move away from invading the homes of beings that look different from us, killing them, and taking their stuff"?

 

[Guest 85555]

That's a non-answer. Why is not doing them, or saying that they're problematic, a disservice to the industry? Those were your words, so you can't claim I'm misrepresenting you.

Getting them removed from the game is the problem, because it is one of the foundational elements of play

 

[Mecheon]

And you can publish things that were of their time. Part of the challenge of history and literature is encountering things like that. Sometimes it is for the good (you encounter an outdated but good idea that challenges modern thinking) and sometimes it is for bad (you encounter a an idea that advocates something terrible or reflects bigotry of the times). But the way I was taught to approach this stuff was read it, because the author isn't going to harm you with their words, and its important to know how people thought in the past (so we can understand how far we have come, where certain ideas could possibly lead to, etc).

Yeah, you can publish whatever you want. No one's talking about censoring anything in all this

but uh, let's not forget they're not doing Dark Sun because they think they wouldn't do a good job of it. Its not "They want to publish Dark Sun but got censored out of it oOoOo', its 'After how bad they got dragged for Spelljammer, they decided its not worth publishing the D&D setting based on a pop culture theme that is basically dead these days because its a massive risk and they don't think they could do it well'. This isn't a date and time where Conan is a big cultural touchpoint thing any more, its sort of a 'yeah that exists' thing

Its a bit like wondering why Old West RPGs aren't big popular things any more

 

[Guest 85555]

Why is it a disservice to say "maybe we should move away from invading the homes of beings that look different from us, killing them, and taking their stuff"?

Saying it isn’t the problem, it’s the lovebehtbyo get it removed or stopped that is. But the reason is because killing orcs is fun, killing goblins in their lair is fun. It has no connection to the real world. Making it so the game either avoids that it friend upon it doesn’t improve play. It just takes away something potentially fun. By all means expand beyond that. But imposing real world ethics and morality on killing orcs in a game seems not especially helpful to the hobby

 

[Guest 85555]

That's a non-answer.

I think it was an an answer. If you need elaboration I am happy to provide it but these kinds of remarks make me reluctant to continue responding

 

[Justice and Rule]

I think it was an an answer. If you need elaboration I am happy to provide it but these kinds of remarks make me reluctant to continue responding

You could maybe have included the rest of their statement in there because cutting it out of context feels like it misses what she was critiquing about your answer.

Saying it isn’t the problem, it’s the lovebehtbyo get it removed or stopped that is. But the reason is because killing orcs is fun, killing goblins in their lair is fun. It has no connection to the real world. Making it so the game either avoids that it friend upon it doesn’t improve play. It just takes away something potentially fun. By all means expand beyond that. But imposing real world ethics and morality on killing orcs in a game seems not especially helpful to the hobby

Have you ever considered that maybe that is less foundational to RPGs that you thought, and that the real foundational part is the roleplaying aspect? I mean, it feels like most of the hobby is moving away from just going into dungeons and killing things, especially given that most adventures I see seem to have stories and motivations behind going there and what's going on in different places. Your style isn't necessarily wrong, but it's just not as important to cater to as it was 20 years ago.